Coffee is one of the world’s most popular beverages. It is there when you wake up in the morning to give you energy and it is there throughout most of your day to keep you going. It is a beverage that has conquered the world—and that’s no exaggeration.
Even North Korea has a Starbucks knockoff!
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But did you know that coffee can be fun? And it can actually be quite the opposite of fun. Coffee is a very interesting beverage with a lot more history and science to it that it may let on at first.
That is why we’ve put together this article with some of the most interesting fun facts about coffee. Let’s take a look!
Fun Facts About Coffee
#1 It was discovered by goats
Correct. This was in Ethiopia, where coffee trees are native to.
Goats were big back then, and a particular herder had gone on a long walk to find green pastures for his goats to chew on.
Eventually, he settled near some bushes with berries that he’d never seen before and dared not touch (could be poisonous!), but the goats were unfazed by this and began munching on them.
A short while later, the goats were jumping and playing up and down, clearly energetic and joyful.
The farmer, known as Kaldi, took notice of this and began to spread the word about this magical tree and its fruit.
#2 Heads rolled
Quite literally.
In the 16th century, coffee was huge in the Middle East. Particulary in the Ottoman empire, people by the hundreds of thousands were taken by coffee and would drink it almost every day.
Many coffee houses started operating during this time and all other drinks like tea were only second fiddle to the mighty coffee.
There was one man, however, that wouldn’t have it. Sultan Murad IV, who ruled over the empire, deemed coffee as something that was perverting his people.
According to traditional beliefs of the time, something like coffee was nothing but a vicious drug that took a hold of people and turned them into addicts.
He eventually made drinking coffee punishable by death, and was so gung-ho about enforcing this that would actually go out to these executions himself and pérsonally behead the criminals.
What a guy.
#3 Coffee seeds
We call them beans, but they’re actually seeds!
The term bean began to be used a long time ago, when people weren’t really familiar with what coffee was. English people who traded the stuff had no idea they were actually seeds from a fruit, so they thought they were roasted beans.
Since at the time it was a big thing to roast certain grains and beans to make tea out of, it wasn’t that strange.
But in fact, coffee comes from coffee trees or bushes.
These bushes give a fruit that is round and half the size of a tennis ball.
Inside this fruit, you can find the precious coffee bean. You can even find two per fruit, if you’re lucky!
#4 It can make you lose weight (but also raise your cholesterol!)
It is thought that coffee helps you lose weight. Since it is a stimulant, it is thought that daily consumption of coffee ultimately leads to an increase in metabolism of up to 20%.
That means that you’d be burning 20% more calories daily just by drinking coffee!
However, it’s not all good news. It is also believed that a certain compound in coffee, cafestol, can raise your cholesterol.
However, cafestol gets trapped in paper and cloth filters, so it is only really a problem if you drink a lot of French press coffee.
#5 Artists love coffee
It would appear that artists have a love for coffee that surpasses those of all other people. There are many different accounts of artists being incredibly particular about their coffee or drinking way too much of it.
Here’s a few examples!
Honoré de Balzac
This famous 18th century writer, was said to drink no less than fifty cups of coffee a day. Some accounts even tell of this writer drinking about three hundred cups a day, although that just seems completely absurd.
But if there’s at least a little bit of truth to this, it’s that he drank a lot of coffee.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Musician and composer was a notable coffee lover. He became obsessed with the drink, the story goes, and wrote The Coffee Cantata in the 18th century.
Ludwig Van Beethoven
He was another famous musician who loved coffee a little too much.
His cups of coffee had to be made with exactly sixty coffee beans, no more no less.
David Lynch
Mr Lynch, a famous American filmmaker is said to be completely in love with coffee.
In an interview, he confesses to drinking cup after cup of coffee—with plenty of sugar—at nighttime and coming up with some of his famous movies during this time.
Photos by Engin, Kate photo and Triin
